Winter 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 1

“I don’t want to be the third wheel,” Kathryn says when Elizabeth tells her Adam is coming over. “Y’all have fun without me.”

The pair sit beside each other at the bar closest to Elizabeth’s condo, sharing a plate of nachos. Kathryn drinks a rum and coke while Elizabeth enjoys her usual strawberry margarita.

“You won’t be a third wheel,” Elizabeth protests. She grabs Kathryn’s arm and tugs playfully. “C’mon, stay! You’ll be more like…a third leg.”

Kathryn nearly falls off her bar stool. “Useless?” She’s half-kidding. As the only single person in her friend group, sometimes she feels like a permanent gooseberry.

“No, essential for extra balance. We neeeeed you. Anyway, I already told Adam you’d be there.”

Kathryn shrugs Elizabeth off her arm and sips her drink. “Isn’t he coming over to spend time with his girlfriend? Why does he care if I’m there?”

Elizabeth gives her a side-eye glance. “I wish you didn’t dislike him so much.”

Kathryn holds up her palms in a peacemaking gesture. “I don’t dislike him! I don’t know him very well.”

The two have been dating for eight months, but Kathryn’s only met him a handful of times.

“So get to know him. I plan on him being around for a while.”

Kathryn’s stomach drops. “You do?”

Elizabeth grins and fiddles with the straw in her margarita. “I really do.”

Kathryn’s silent, maybe for a beat too long, before saying, “Okay, I’ll come hang out.”

As she pulls up behind Elizabeth’s Volvo, Adam’s beat-up Corolla sits parked on the curb. He’s playing air drums in his car like a dork. When he spots Elizabeth, he hops out and gives her a peck before nodding hello to Kathryn, who waves back with all the energy of a deflated balloon.

“I bring gifts.” Adam holds up a large bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey.

“You’re the best.” Elizabeth smiles and gives him another kiss. Kathryn looks away.

It’s excruciating, watching a movie with the happy couple. Elizabeth swings her legs over Adam’s and snuggles into his arm. Kathryn, on the other end of the couch, sits ramrod straight, staring at the screen and pretending not to see the embarrassing display of affection.

When the movie ends, she stands, ready to leave, but Elizabeth whines that they haven’t even cracked open the whiskey. It’s a Friday night and it’s so early. Wouldn’t Kathryn rather stay a bit longer? She relents, hating herself for being such a pushover.

One drink, two drinks, three drinks in, and it’s clear that she won’t be sleeping at home tonight. She’s more relaxed now, enjoying herself, giggling at Adam’s jokes. At one point Elizabeth smirks smugly at her. A stab of guilt pierces her throat and she stops laughing abruptly.

“You guys met in college, right?” Adam asks. In fact, they did, in the general intro course required for freshmen.

“We were instant friends,” Elizabeth grins at Kathryn over her drink. “We’ve been through it all. Classes, graduation, slimy ex-boyfriends…”

Adam smiles wolfishly at Kathryn. He has a dimple that doesn’t show at all until he smiles. It’s cute. “I bet you have some stories you could tell.”

Kathryn looks Adam in the eye for a lingering moment. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She sounds almost flirtatious. She glances at Elizabeth, who doesn’t seem to have noticed. “Where did you go to college?” she asks, though she already knows he went to Georgia State. She knows he studied film and that he works doing sound work for a local production studio. She knows a lot more than she lets on.

Two drinks later and the floor feels wavy underneath Kathryn’s feet. Adam is making Elizabeth and Kathryn laugh until they’re hanging onto each other.

“Stop, stop,” Kathryn gasps with laughter. “I have to pee.” She staggers to the bathroom, which spins slightly as she sits on the toilet. She urinates for a full minute, her bladder sighing with relief. By the time she exits the bathroom and makes her way back to the living room, Elizabeth and Adam have passed out on the couch, tangled up with each other. Elizabeth’s always been like that when drinking: alert one second, asleep the next.

Kathryn plops down on the couch and checks the time on her phone. One a.m. She’s not tired. Still, she’s about to call it a night and head upstairs when she thinks, Nobody’s watching. I can look at him now.

So she does: she drinks him in, from head to toe. His dark brown hair looks soft and feathery; she longs to run her hands through it, to stroke the stubble on his face, to make him laugh so she can see that dimple. Glancing down, she spies his bare feet. His second toe is longer than his big toe. She feels a rush of affection so powerful it nearly brings her to tears. When even the sight of his hairy, crooked toes makes her feel this way, how can it not be love?

She dreams of him coming to her and confessing his attraction from the day they met. What happens to her friendship with Elizabeth in these scenarios? Her dreams never quite get that far.

Looking back up, her heart jolts when she sees his eyes are open, watching her.

“You should be sleeping,” she whispers in mock severity.

Instead of closing his eyes, he sits up, untangling himself from his girlfriend and running a hand through his hair. Kathryn feels a pang of envy in the pit of her stomach.

“Then why are you still up?”

She half shrugs. Her mouth is dry. “I don’t get much sleep.”

“An insomniac.” Adam nods sagely. When she glances at Elizabeth, still sleeping, he says, “She sleeps like the dead. But let’s move to the guest bedroom and talk.”

Kathryn’s head spins slightly. She should try to sleep, but lying down will make her head spin more. She tells herself that’s her excuse to keep talking to Adam.

“Grab the whiskey,” he tells her, and she does, though it’s almost empty and the last thing her stomach needs is more alcohol.

They stumble to the guest bedroom and sit cross-legged on the bed across from each other. An octopus painting—Elizabeth’s favorite animal—hangs on the wall above the dresser. Kathryn looks away from the tentacles reaching toward her. She hates octopuses.

“Let’s play Truth,” Adam suggests, pouring them each two fingers of whiskey.

“You mean Truth or Dare?” Kathryn can see this heading to a horrible place.

“Nah. If we play Truth or Dare, you’re just gonna pick Truth every time. Right? So let’s skip the bullshit and play Truth.”

Kathryn smiles. It’s true; she’s not much of a dare-picker. “What are the rules?”

“I ask a question, you have to answer or drink. Then I answer the same question—or drink. Then it’s your turn to ask.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So anything I ask, I also have to answer?”

“Bingo.”

“That will severely limit what I’m willing to ask.”

“Oh, come on.” Adam raises his glass and winks. “Live a little.”

“I promise nothing. You go first, show me how it’s done.”

Adam snorts. “Chicken. Okay. How old were you when you…” Kathryn feels her cheeks growing warm. “...got your first job?”

“Oh!”

“Hm? Did you think I was going to ask something else?” Adam asks, a smile belying his innocent tone. Her stomach does a backflip.

“No. I don’t know.” Kathryn’s face still feels hot. She can feel the creepy octopus’s eyes on her.

“Are you going to answer, or are you going to drink?”

“Um, answer. Definitely. I was sixteen. Chick-fil-A.”

“I was eighteen. Retail.”

It’s her turn. She has a million questions she wants to ask, but she needs to play it safe. “Who was your first crush?”

“Nala from The Lion King,” Adam answers promptly.

She snorts. “Really?”

“First one I can remember. Those bedroom eyes she gives Simba? I was a goner.” He’s laughing, but he’s serious, too. She can’t judge. She had a crush on Aladdin. Then again, Aladdin was human.

Adam clinks his still-full glass against hers. “What about you?”

She grins. “My sister’s best friend. Older sister. I was six, he was ten, and I would follow him around on the playground after school. He hated me! Poor guy.”

“I bet you were a heartbreaker even at six.”

She gives a little cough, the tips of her ears growing hot. “No, my heartbreaking years didn’t start until I was seven,” she jokes.

“If a genie granted you three wishes, what would your first wish be? And don’t say ‘a million more wishes.’”

On and on it goes, bouncing questions off each other. Some silly, some serious. At some point, it seems that neither of them will dodge a question, so they start to drink the remaining whiskey anyway. They’ve inched closer together during the game, and their knees are almost touching.

Adam reaches to refill her glass when he asks, “Who’s the last person you creeped on social media?”

“Pass.” Oh, god. She should have lied.

“Really?” He sounds incredulous. “You told me about pissing your pants from laughing too hard the first time you got drunk, but you won’t talk about Insta stalking?”

“Nope.” She drinks.

“Alright, then. If you won’t answer, I won’t either.” He raises his glass to his lips.

“What’s a relationship regret you have?” Kathryn blurts this out.

“A relationship regret?”

“Yeah, I mean, like, what’s something you did in a relationship that you regret, or didn’t do in a relationship that you regret…or….” She’s babbling.

“I got you. Damn.” He chuckles. “I have too many to share. No, I’m not dodging the question, just give me a second.” He drinks anyway, his eyes far away in a memory. “Probably the time I texted a friend that I was thinking about breaking up with my girlfriend…except I didn’t text the friend.”

Kathryn gasps. “You texted the girlfriend?”

“One hundred percent. That was awkward.”

“A text-tastrophe.”

“Mmhmm. Your turn.”

Maybe it’s the whiskey, maybe it’s because she didn’t answer the last question, but she returns his honesty with a dash of her own. “I met the right guy at the wrong time.” Her breath hitches. She wants to look him in the eye as she says this, wants him to understand the significance, wants him to reach out and touch her hand, she wants so many things but she’s a coward, so she looks down, grinning ruefully.

Adam’s voice sounds strange when he says, “Oh, yeah, we’ve all been there.”

Could he mean—?

“Adam?”

Kathryn’s head snaps around to the bedroom door at the sound of Elizabeth’s voice. She stands at the door, sleepily rubbing her eyes and blinking heavily.

“What are you guys doing?” she asks, and she doesn’t sound mad, only confused. “I woke up and you were gone.”

Adam jumps off the bed. “Sorry, baby. I didn’t want to wake you. We were playing Truth.”

“Oh…come to bed, okay?”

“Of course.” Adam drains his glass.

Elizabeth looks at Kathryn. “‘Night.”

“‘Night,” she says, her voice weak.

Adam doesn’t say goodnight. But he gives her a last look as he closes the door. It’s ambiguous—a slight lift of an eyebrow, a quirk of the mouth—possibly regretful, but possibly he’s not thinking about her at all. His mind might already be in bed with Elizabeth.

Kathryn places the empty bottle of whiskey on the dresser next to the glasses. She avoids looking at the octopus painting. She gets back in bed, under the covers, and dreams of an Adam she can have.